Love, Worry, Laugh

Last night as I was doing the usual in the ladies room at the Malibu Play House, a plaque on the wall jumped out at me. After all, one's power of observation is greatly increased while sitting quietly. It read "LOVE, WORRY, LAUGH." Yup, that's me. I love, worry and laugh all the time. Then I put on my glasses to read what looked like some fine print underneath those bold exhortations. The complete message read, "LOVE more, WORRY less, and LAUGH hard."

The devil is in the details, and these details triggered an immediate depressive and discouraged reaction that drained the life energy out of me in a nanosecond. As if it's not good enough just to love, worry, and laugh.  Now this little carved bauble is telling me I have to do "more, less and hard." Too much pressure. Too much judgement on what might be 'good enough.' Anyone who can love and laugh even a little is ahead of the game. But now this message is worrying because my whole life has been spent trying to worry less and so far the progress can be measured in micrometers.

Doing more and less while doing it hard might be instructions straight out of the Kama Sutra, which I never bothered to read as my learning comes from direct experience. In this case, the author of the  wood-carved bathroom decoration was more than likely trying to make a buck off of a New Age aphorism. The innocent who purchased this for the Malibu Playhouse bathroom had good intentions, to be sure, but in this "more is better" culture, can't we be left alone to love, worry and laugh at our own pace and not feel that we are 'not enough' if we don't do it more, less, and hard?